On this post, I like to share about my favorite automotive manufacturer, Alfa Romeo. I’ll share any history, facts and trivia about Alfa Romeo that I have known from what I was told from my dad and a bit of internet searching.

The Quadrifoglio

The Cloverleaf. The Alfa Pride. The history of the Quadrifoglio can be traced back to the year 1923, where Alfa have a race team consist of Ugo Sivocci, Antonio Ascari, Giulio Masetti and Enzo Ferrari (yes, the founder of Ferrari). Among them all, Ugo Sivocci, was considered to be an experienced driver and always hampered by bad luck.

During the Targa Florio 1923, Ugo Sivocci, who is a superstitious man, decided to paint a four-leaf clover on the side of his car for a token of good luck during the race. With the cloverleaf painted on the side of his car, he ended up winning the race. A few months later after the race, Sivocci was killed while testing a new car at Monza. The car he was testing, an Alfa Romeo P1, did not have the quadrifofoglio painted on it side.

Initially, the cloverleaf was painted on a white tilted square, or a white diamond, which each corner represent the four drivers in the team. After the death of Ugo Sivocci, the white square was replace with a white triangle as a tribute to Sivocci. From that day on, the symbol have found it place in many Alfa Romeo’s race cars and high-end road cars.

The First Alfa Romeo with the Quadrifoglio.

Alfa Romeo & Active Aero

If you are a long-time Alfa enthusiast (should I say Alfista?) or have been digging for a while, you’ll know that the new Alfa Giulia Quadrifoglio is not the first production Alfa Romeo with active aero or adjustable front splitter.

The technology can be found on Alfa Romeo 90, a sedan manufactured between 1984 to 1987. The front splitter will move downwards above certain speed. Unlike the Alfa Giulia Quadrifoglio, the adjustable front splitter on the Alfa 90 is to aid engine cooling instead of improving the vehicle aerodynamics.

Video of the front splitter in action

The Shared Platform

In October 1973, four carmakers, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Saab, agreed to develop a new platform together. This is to reduce development cost on a new top-of-the-range saloon, which eventually would compete against other manufacturers such as the Germans.

The result of this agreement is the Type Four platform, which latter is used to develop cars such as Alfa Romeo 164, Lancia Thema, Fiat Croma and Saab 9000. As most of them are very similiar, many parts could be swapped between them. For example, the doors from the Fiat Croma fit directly on the 9000.

Because of this shared platform, James May decided to weld an Alfa 164 and Saab 9000 together for the Top Gear limousine challenge which lead to the birth of the Salfa Romeaab.

a total genius. period.

Different Market, Different Name.

During the Alfa Romeo 164 lifetime, it was renamed 168 in the Malaysian and Hong Kong markets. The reason for this is how the model name is spelled in Chinese. As you see, in Chinese, 164 can be roughly translated to “the more you go, the more you die”, while it is the opposite with the 168, which roughly means “the more you go, the wealthier you will be”.

So, if you want to feel extra lucky, go find an Alfa 164 QV and renamed 168 QV. With the Quadrifoglio and 168, you will get double the luck when you drive it. Though that double luck might be cancel out with Alfa’s unreliability. Still, props to Alfa for that prosperous name change.

The one in the picture above is my dad’s. Somehow for an unknown reason, some 164s retained their original name in Malaysia. My dad’s have 168 written on it while his friends’ have 164 written on theirs. When I was a young kid, I was confused to see this.

The Leading Force of The Police

As a Malaysian, I feel like I should include this. For Malaysian Alfisti in CT, this one is for you.

During the 70’s til the 80’s, the Royal Malaysian Police decided to add Alfa Romeo into their fleet of police cars. The models used by the Royal Malaysian Police are Alfa Romeo Giulia (the classic ones) and Alfetta. The Alfas are used as patrol cars, pursuit cars, escort vehicles and even the top brass of the police used Alfa Romeo as their official vehicles.

Not only the Alfas give terror to the criminals, it also give chills to ordinary citizen, especially a white unmarked ones as that are what the undercover cops usually use. This also leads to the term “Lari. Lari. Alfa Sudah Mari.” which means “Run. Run. The Alfa Have Come.”

Malaysian cops in action.

That’s all for this post. This is my first time writing this type of post so it might kinda be on the short side.

I would like to share more but if I do, it might be too long. Maybe I would write a second part. I also might write about other manufacturers too. It won’t come in a short while though as I need to balance my life between my studies and complete all assignments. It will come when I have the time to do it.

Any advice and suggestions on what to write for next post would be nice. Until then, thank you and see you all later.